The Secret of Love
by Nekomiimii
Summary: Gumi didn't care that she's gifted or that she's her compounds "repair woman". It was a lonely existence, she only wanted to feel needed, to feel as if though there really was someone for her out there who'll want her for her. If only Fate was kind. . .
1. Chapter 1

A/N:

This is a gift Fic that was originally supposed to be a one-shot for I My Me Mine. I had several ideas on where to go with this (and two others), that it seemed a little bit abrupt when I ended them. Instead, I decided to mash all three ideas into this and it ended up being a multi-chapter fic, give or take about twenty chapters. Hnnnnng, but this was supposed to be uploaded roughly about a week ago. Stupid schedule. . .

Oh, and Mr. Kagamine is referring to Rinto, not Len.

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><p>As Gumi Megpoid sloshed along home from school, her eyes were drawn to a boy with hot pink hair and glasses, making a snowball. <em>Cute<em>, she thought, _but definitely not magic_. Her boots plowed through the slush as she moved farther down the street. There, another boy!—but he looked a bit like a cat. She'd need someone more civilized, someone who could appreciate her simple, ordinary existence. She yanked her load of books higher on her hip and turned into Minno Avenue—in the home stretch at last. It was getting dark so early.

The coldest December she could remember, and it seemed every house had a snowman staring at her. She watched the wind-pushed snow dust over their cold bodies—carrots, pieces of coal, absolutely absurd specks to portray eyes, noses and mouths. Just one more lineup of subzero males who didn't even know she was alive.

_A clod, that's what I am, a bouncing clod—fifty pounds of science books. The cheap artificial fur coat, a shapeless cardigan peeking out, and my stupid jumper._ If there was a boy looking down from an attic window, he was probably horrified. If a boy came out of a door somewhere or was driving by in a car, how silly she must look, how insignificant! _How eccentric!_ she moaned to herself. _A penguin, that's what I am_, she thought, going up the steps of the small wood-framed house with the postage stamp front yard. _I am a penguin_.

Gumi went straight to her room. Off came the phony fur, the unforgivable cardigan. She put her books on her desk, kicked her boots toward the radiator, and plopped smack across the bed, pen in hand. she had so much to tell as she yanked her diary out of the bed stand drawer.

"Oh, my dear diary, here it is almost Christmas and I still haven't found a boy. . . and whats even worse, I'm tired of complaining about it."

She decided to pad the page with a description of an experiment they did that afternoon in Chemistry class, during which Mr. Kagamine got his eyebrows blown off. He looked hilarious with that instant sunburn, which made him look like his face had spent two weeks in Mexico but that he forgot to take his whole neck with him.

Her eyes drifted along her bookshelf and stopped on her sister Sonika's yearbook—the only book her sister had bequeathed her besides a very work copy of _How to Get Guys_. Lucky Sonika, gorgeous, terrific—_everything I'm not_—and out of school to boot. She got down the yearbook. There were so many boys who had signed it.

_To Sonika, _

_You're a real insane chick! Never change because that's just he way I love you. _

_Sora._

There was another graduation photo of a boy who looked like a very interesting person except for his pointed chin.

_Dear Sonika,_

_ You've always been a real close friend, and I will never forget all the good times we had together. You'll make a hell of a comptometer operator. _

_With love, _

_Tonio._

A whole yearbook full of boys saying how much they loved her sister!

Gumi sighed again. _I'll be lucky if I can get my Physics teacher to sign my yearbook. _

_Dear Gumi, _

_You excelled in pulley systems. I'll never forget all the fun you were with Newton's Laws. _

_Yours truly, _

_Mr. Hiirone_

_Or my Chemistry teacher: _

_Dear Gumi, _

_What a wonderful test tube you've been. _

_With great respect, _

_Mr. Kagamine_

Not one sensational boy would sign her book. Gumi got up from the bed and moved to the workshop section of her room. The hammers, pliers, screwdrivers, tape measure, incline plane, saws, cements—everything nest as a pin. She retrieved her bankbooks from behind the huge Mont Blanc's auto repair manual. She had $2,678.90 in Internet and $1,208.23 in Crypton. She'd only opened the account at Crypton because they had offered a nifty set of wrenches. Well, at lease she was getting richer, she comforted herself. In the loot department, she really wasn't doing too bad for a high school Sophomore. In another month there would be more interest to add on and there were always a lot of jobs waiting for her.

Mr. Akiyama at the drugstore had asked her to lay some tiles by a sliding door. Mrs. Hatsun across the street wanted her to make a built-in bookcase. Amane's TV Store begged her to do more freelancing on stereo and TV repairs. In fact during the last year, word of mouth that she could do automotive, carpentry, electronic, and mechanical repair had spread like wild fire. All right, so maybe it was a little unusual. Maybe she was the only girl she knew whose ambition was to grow up to own and operate a Danko gas station, but it was paying off.

_Or was it? _

Money, money, money, oh what good was it all without a person at your side to help you spend it? She heard her mother's door open at the end of the hall, but those weren't her mother's footsteps coming out. The noises went down the stairs to the kitchen. Gumi decided to check it out. From the bottom of the stairs ash could see straight through to the back of the house. A strange man dressed in a shiny shirt and shimmering pants was digging though the refrigerator. He looked like a fired Fred Astaire dance instructor. Forty years old, she decided, and a big forehead. The man turned, suddenly spying Gumi standing in the kitchen doorway.

"Hi," he said. She saw his eyes lingering on her hair. She just knew he was thinking that it looked like crab grass. Or perhaps he was wondering how her blonde mother produced a (two) green haired daughter when her former husband had lavender hair.

But she had no patience for him. "Who are you?"

"Al." He smiled. "And you must be Gumi."

"I see Mom's already told you about me."

"She said you were a good daughter."

"Are you her _friend_?"

"I'd like to be your friend, too." Al took a container of skim milk from the refrigerator, shut the door, and walked to the sink. "Your mother's a very wonderful woman," Al started.

Gumi decided not to listen to another word and quickly turned and zipped back down the hall and up the stairs that led to her room. She'd have to let this one know where he stood. Nobody was going to play Poppa to her. Her father was still alive and well and working at a chemical firm in Manhattan—and living with Mew, that nice young secretary who used to smoke cigarettes and let the fumes curl up into her nose and then back out of her mouth before she gave up smoking all together.

No, she couldn't be listening to any worn-out dance instructor or used car salesman or any of the other boyfriends her mother brought home.

Back in her room she looked at the photo of her father on the dresser. He was standing in front of a huge oil refinery, smiling and waving in a lab smock. She went over and looked at her second favorite photo lying next to it. Her father, smiling, waving as usual with her, two years old, sitting in a go-cart her father had just built.

"Take a little girl through your window," she began to sing to herself. "Take a little girl through your window." That was her favorite song her father used to sing to her.

She'd get out now, that's what she'd do. Just go and have a good time. Today at school was hard enough. Back on went the sweater, on went the phony fur, gloves, scarf. Anything to avoid the cocktail hour with her mother and latest heart throb.

She grabbed one of her physics books. She'd go read it in the library if she got bored. Her tool kit, she'd take that just in case. Actually, if she worked fast, she could make forty dollars before dinner doing odd jobs, so the day wouldn't be a total let down.

With a spring in her step, she sailed down the stairs and out of the house before she knew it. The sky was dark blue with little snow clouds hovering far off into the next town. Her tool kit banged at her side as she plodded back down the street. _Plop! Squish! Splash!_

She decided she needed a hot chocolate, so she went straight to NekoShake!, the soda shop where everybody who was anybody went after school. The best-looking boys and girls sat in booths closest to the jukebox. There were only eight booths and about twenty tables. If you had a booth, everyone looked at you. Of course, if you were a social cripple, you sat at the counter. That was okay only if you were a freshman, and then if you were really _untouchable_, you simply walked in and bought a chocolate lollipop at the cash register.

Gumi sat at the counter and ordered a hot chocolate. While she sipped she made believe she was checking her screw inventory in the toolbox. After she had counted almost every screw, she decided to open her physics book and read about the filaments in cathode tubes. She really felt she was somewhat limited in physics, and the only chance she had of understanding electron flow was to constantly think of electricity as being a stream of water. It would work for high school physics, but electrons were not really drops of water, and unless her mind made some tremendous break-through, she knew that running a Danko gas station was a more realistic goal than heading up something like the laboratory at the Mount Sky Observatory.

Miss Nekomura, the rose haired owner, came over. "How're ya doin', Gumi?"

"Ok," Gumi said nervously. What she liked about Miss Nekomura was that she always seemed to understand her. What's more, she felt that she really _appreciated_ her. And she was incredibly nice. A small young woman and looked as if though she wasn't a day over twelve, despite being twenty-three and had a love of cats. That and she had a cute way of a talking; one of her canines looked slightly longer and got in her way of talking so some of her words were sometimes clipped. But all it did was up her cuteness appeal, or that's what Gumi thought. Shame that a woman like that wasn't noticed. . .

"How's life treatin' ya?" she wanted to know, snapping Gumi out of her thoughts.

"Pretty good," she replied before taking another sip.

"Good!" The young woman smiled. "Say, if it's not too much to ask, do y'think y'can add some fluoreshent lights in over the front counter?"

"Sure. I'll come in and look it over. Maybe I can do the work next Sunday, if you let me in."

Miss Nekomura visibly perked up and flattened out a crease on her apron. "Thanks, Gumi!" She chirped.

"Thank _you_," Gumi clutched her tool kit and surveyed the area where the lights would go. Now that she had something to really think about, she was able to do what she had really come in there to do in the fist place. Slowly, she let her eyes drift towards the jukebox area. Some record was playing with a girl moaning about love gone wrong. There was one boy, his hand raised, clutching a Rompon. His face looked a little rubber, trying so hard to entertain.

_Too much of a fool, but nice hair._

And another boy literally jumping up and down in the aisle. He had a nice laugh, but what a goofball. Then she focused on Ron Keine—from her physics class—with long, dark bluish-black hair that was tied in a short braid, his ears peeking out from under his bangs. He was nice-looking, a little like a feudal Lord in the Imperial times of Japan. But his soft angled face and body made him appear almost like a young woman, a bit older than Miss Nekomura, that you wouldn't have known him to be male if you didn't hear him talk. Or even if that.

And then there were the _awful_ girls. One dressed in overalls pretending to be an innocent farmer's daughter. And another one with short bangs and straight hair, and a chin like a wrestler. And the _awful_ Pan Kanino, with her short pink, pixie-cut hair framing her small, oval face and large emerald green eyes giving her a childish appearance. She was doing gurgling things with a straw after downing a Kanipan.

And the real horrors, the gorgeous cheerleaders—their terrific gray-and-white trimmed jackets with little pins and letters on them. A pack of really pretty, healthy girls who looked like they were weaned on vegetables, hanging, literally, hanging on the football players. But her mother had always told her not to worry about beautiful cheerleaders. All beautiful cheerleaders grow up to be very ugly old maids who push supermarket baskets around, and their legs get as wide as elephants'. Gumi knew it wasn't true, but it was a great hypothesis that her mother had come up.

She looked back at the ceiling as though checking the electrical accesses for the forthcoming installation, and then she let her eyes switch back to the specific focus on the boys. There was Jaran Coppola, a boy from her lunch period who played in the band, very interesting lips and nice posture.

And there they were—seven football guys lined up in a double booth, big numbers on their chests. Physically, they did look delicious. And they all had shoulders, big strong shoulders. But while there was nothing excitingly masculine about them, she never once got the impression any of them could be tender. She felt they'd much prefer a good medium-rare steak to a kiss.

But there were some other girls with boys who looked just nice. They looked like nice happy couples, sipping their sodas and talking normally. That's what she wanted, to just be able to sit with a boy and talk. But it would have to be a boy she felt something for. Someone who when she looked at him would make her think only how much she loved him. Love would be waiting for her somewhere, and she knew when she saw _that_ boy, she would know it. When she saw the boy meant for her, there would be a circus in her heart—no, in her mind. It would be a mind circus.

_Somewhere there was a boy who would give her a mind circus._

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><p>AN:

Ugh, darn you schedule. . . Well, I hope to be able to update this every Tuesday/Wednesday ever week. The chapters will be relatively short and, again, I'm trying to make some parts of this to be a bit. . . funny. Not sure if I'm getting it, though. . . OTL|||

Now, the wording may sound strange, but the time period isn't exactly present time. Any takers on who can guess in what time period this is? By the way, the setting is in some town in America, hence why I'm not using honorifics (or it could be that I'm just lazy and shizz). /*shot

And sorry about Al, I love him, I really do, but like with Miki, I like to poke fun at the ones I like. X3 And I kind of wanted to see what it'd be like to give Gumi a different personality, some on here make her a secret Genius because apparently nobody can take her seriously because of her ditzy demeanor, a shrinking violet, or an outspoken, pesky little sister, or even a kick-ass-insane-psycho-chick-of-epic-doom (my favorite! XD ). So yeah, just experimenting. Oh, and Rompon is a brand of soda, like Pepsi.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N:

To Anon: You got it right! X3

Currently in History, we're talking about that time period (late 50s, early 60s) and we've watched a few films about this time, and I figured to have a little fun and try to write something similar. I've also read a few articles and some light novels to try and get the feel of the style of writing and I couldn't wait to try it out. This is about 1-2 days early, but I guess that's better for the readers, isn't it? X3

As for the stereotypes, absolutely intentional. They'll come back every now and then, of course.

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><p>The next morning Gumi stumbled her way to school. It was only three blocks from her door to the entrance of Port Terra Kane High School, but it seemed like an eight-mile death march with one thousand five hundred oppressed fellow-pubescent prisoners. All the kids just plodded along both sides of the street. Occasionally a teacher's car would go by. She recognized Mrs. Hatsune, who taught English—the only English teacher she had ever heard of who had a doctorate in Shakespearean studies and was so brilliant nobody ever knew what she was talking about. Then she glimpsed the Spanish teacher, who thought he was a flamenco dancer and the answer to every girl's dream. And of course, there was Mrs. Megurine, whom she had absolutely adored when she had taken a biology course with her. She had never forgotten about the time Mrs. Megurine told her she had found a baby chipmunk that would have frozen to death if she hadn't kept it warm by nestling it down the front of her dress. The class was stunned when Mrs. Megurine confided in them that one time the postman had rung the bell to deliver a package, and she opened the door forgetting about the chipmunk; and as the postman was talking to her the chipmunk climbed up out of her bosom.<p>

Actually, on the whole, Port Terra Kane had some terrific teachers, really down-to-earth. And Gumi imagined quite a few of them were old maids who were probably as lonely as she was. Nowadays she knew you didn't have to be a woman to end up as an old maid, and some of the single teachers seemed to really _like_ living alone. "Independent," they called it. Maybe someday that would sound good to her, but now in her life she wanted a boy.

She had physics first period with Mr. Hiirone, a very sweet young man who often inspired her. But it was much too early today to be inspired.

"Magnetism," Mr. Hiirone was telling the class of thirty-eight kids,"has been known about for centuries. There were early legends concerning its discovery. One of those, found in a Greek manuscript written before the birth of Christ, tells about the wonders performed by a roving band of iron workers called Cabiri. One of their astounding feats was to cause an iron-like stone, now known as lodestone, to attract and hold several iron rings. . ."

That is about all she could remember hearing before she was aware of the laughter. The class was laughing, Mr. Hiirone was staring at her. She knew she had dozed off. She so hoped she hadn't snored.

"What's going on?" Mr. Hiirone wanted to know. "I realize I'm boring, but you don't usually fall asleep, Megumi. Are you stoned?"

She sighed and rubbed her eyes. "No, Mr. Hiirone, I swear."

He nodded his head and turned his back to the class. "Now then, looking past that, one thing you do know is that the lodestone of the Cabiri was a natural magnet," Mr. Hiirone went on,"which magnetized the rings and thus held them together by an invisible force. . ."

She was grateful the class had returned to the boredom of magnetism. After physics there was math, and then gym with the tough Miss Matsuda, who acted as if though she could play for the Pittsburgh Steelers; and lunch supervised by the sweet Miss Tone, whom kids used to always throw pennies and M&Ms at; and then came a few of the electives.

There was a boy who sat next to her named Ren Ikune in Miss Darling's music class. He used to make animal noises while Miss Darling would talk about the beauty of Chopin. Sometimes he'd work the whole class up into such a wild frenzy, Miss Darling, who was about 173 years old, would snatch off her eyeglasses and begin to suck on the frame. When she felt everything was really going bananas, she'd rush to the piano and begin to play "Dry Bones" in jazz tempo. She was obviously as mad as a hatter, but banging out "Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones" seemed to quiet down the pack of teenage coyotes she used to get for every class.

The rest of the day would become just little images for her diary: some boy walking down the hall with a pompom; another boy with long blonde hair wearing stripes like he had just gotten out of reform school. She walked by the principal's office and there was another boy in there who looked like he was bout to be sent to the electric chair. And there was a despondent couple in one stairwell who looked like they were falling _out_ of love.

Finally in art she got a chance to really get into her new book. She felt as though the writer was writing directly on her heart: _When it gets right down to basics_, the book said,_ onto the bust steps an incredible-looking boy, a delectable-looking boy. He looks warm, sweet, special. His pants are sexy yet tasteful. His deep, dark eyes are soulful, his lips sensuous. Immediately you have visions of intimate encounters, wines by candlelight, hugging and making love. You want to call over to him. You want to say,"Here boy, sit right here next to me." Well, this book is going to tell you how to get that boy not only sit next to you but to smother you with love and tender kisses._

Gumi felt her entire body sigh. She sighed all the way home from school. She sighed sloshing the way home from school. She sighed sloshing back with her tool kit and delivering the lamp she had fixed for Mr. Isamune, and the Plexiglass picture frame she had glued for Mrs. Momone. And she sighed, especially, when sitting down for dinner with her mother and Al.

Mrs. Megpoid scooped string beans onto Al's plate as though she had selected each one personally and painted it with butter. There was no question that she was a rather pretty woman for forty-eight. Admirable, Gumi often thought. She thought her mother had very admirable features, well tousled long blonde locks and bangs that lazily fell in front of her face to give her a more youthful appearance. Only one dangerous feature—her large ears. When it came to nose, mouth and eyes, her mother was as pretty as anybody she'd ever seen. Oh, it really wasn't surprising to her that her sweet father had once married her, and that now many men were still interested in her.

Al had another shiny shirt. His forehead had gotten bigger; his hair was slicked back now and he had turned out to be a used-car salesman. He said he was one of the top dynamic influences at Casa de Volvo, but Gumi seriously doubted that.

"How was school today, Gumi?" Mrs. Megpoid asked.

Gumi was chewing a mouthful of veal parmigiana and wasn't about to start chatting.

"_I_ loved school," Al offered. "Of course I didn't have as many science classes as you have. I never met a girl who had so many science courses."

Gumi wanted to burp. She decided she'd better not. She forced herself to look at this used-car salesman with the mozzarella getting entwined in his teeth. Now it seemed like her mother _and_ Al weren't going to stop staring at her until she made some sort of sound, but she wouldn't.

Her mother finally said,"Mrs. Momone called about the picture frame. Said you did a marvelous job on it—that you had it in some kind of clamp."

"I had it in a vise."

"There you go, correcting me again," Mrs. Megpoid pointed out. "I just think you're so weird, Gumi. Don't you feel weird with all those galvanometers and pliers? I never knew a girl who went from dolls straight to pliers. You should be getting involved in more social activities. _Boys_! Don't you ever think about _boys_?"

"Your mother's right, Gumi," Al said. "If you saw my son Oliver you'd start wearing a dress. I tell you, by your age, we were really doing some hot stuff and—"

Mrs. Megpoid glanced at Al, shooting him a look that made his words freeze in his throat. Gumi always enjoyed watching her mother control her men. In fact one of the ground rules of her mother's having a man in the house was that it had to be someone she could run like a puppet. Someone totally unlike Gumi's father. Gumi's dad was his own man, that was one thing for sure!

Gumi just went about the business of eating and let her mother and Al talk about a variety of subjects, from the truly destructive qualities of the music to the retail value of used Volvos. Gumi thanked God there was a newspaper lying on the table near the glass lily-shaped case with phony dogwood hanging out of it. The newspaper was open to the sports page. _Al must like sports, like a real man_, she thought. _Just loves to sit on his ass and cheery while other people are really getting out and doing things_. Her eye caught headlines that did not fascinate her, like "Yanks Win—Stay Half Game Ahead" or "Now Big Louie Can Concentrate on Batting Average". And a more daring peg: "One Coach's Purgatory." Really, what an exaggeration. If somebody wanted to know about hell, they could just ask her.

She started reading the ads for the health clubs where men and woman were supposed to frolic together using Nautilus weight-lifting equipment. And there were horrible items about guns and the latest shooting techniques. How to make a fishing fly to catch wide pike. She was about to let out another big sigh she she spotted a picture of a couple of young boys standing next to a little race car. The headline was "Midget Raceway Opens in Nora's Harbor."

Nora's Harbor was right next to Port Terra Kane, so she'd seen the huge field when they were paving it and putting in the twisting cement roadway and building the little grandstand. At first she'd thought it was going to be a water slide. Now in the picture it had opened, a and there were all these kids going there to lay down their cash so they could get into these midget race cars and make believe they were in the Indianapolis 500. But what caught her attention was one face in particular.

The caption didn't say anything about him. He looked like a mechanic, somebody who was in charge of the cars. He had an incredible, lop-sided smile, a bright-eyed innocence, as though it was the first time his picture was ever taken. And there was something about his thin legs and long arms, and the way the words "Nora's Midgets" hung down his chest. He looked like _fun_. He was handsome, had brown hair—maybe it was supposed to be blonde, but it looked pretty dark in the newspaper reproduction. He looked friendly, special. He was better than any movie star she had ever seen. Yes, his eyes are soulful, his lips sensuous. He looked like he was a boy of the world, and he couldn't be more than eighteen. He looked like he knew all about law, and medicine, and photography, and the theater. He looked like someone who was really going places, maybe a doctor-to-be or a journalist. But it didn't matter; there was something about this boy that was leaping out of the newspaper, machine gunning Megumi Megpoid from the sports page of the Hake Island Advance. A machine gun screaming,_"I am fun and romance."_

"What's the matter, Gumi?" She heard her mother say.

"Oh nothing," Gumi said. She was fighting a distinct desire to lift the sports page up to her lips and start kissing the photo of this unknown mechanic. She wanted to dive into the newspaper. She wanted to cut the picture out, tear it out, and wear it on her heart. Nora's Midgets became a poem.

"Excuse me, Mother," Gumi said. "I have a little indigestion. I'm going to need an Alka-Seltzer."

Al said something to her, but she ignored him and left the table. Before she turned away, she looked back at Al and showed him the paper. "Are you finished with the newspaper?" she asked.

"Oh, sure," he answered.

"Thank you." Gumi picked the paper from him as if though it was a priceless Dead Sea Scroll. She tried not to appear excited as she moved out of the dining room and started up the stairs. As she neared her room she picked up speed. She flung the door open, slammed it shut and leaped across the bed, and spread the picture out again. She ripped her diary off the bookcase and she began to write frantically and passionately,"Dear Diary, On this day, I have found _the boy_."

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><p>AN:

How many of you can guess I'm having loads of fun writing this already? 8D


	3. Chapter 3

A/N:

Many thanks to those who've reviewed, favorited and alerted this! I didn't think it would have that many in such a short period; three faves, four alerts and a fair amount of hits. Thank you! :D

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><p>The ad was on the entertainment page: "Nora's Harbor Midget Raceway. Let us put you in the seat of your own Grand Prix racer." There was a giant drawing of a race car with over-sized tired. The kid sitting in the seat looked like a midget, and the hood looked about fifty feet larger than the kid. "For the thrill of a lifetime! 555-6190. Open Friday through Sunday." That was par for Staten Island. It seemed like the Island closed down except for weekends. But here it was only Tuesday. Maybe <em>someone<em> would be there anyway.

She hesitated, then grabbed the phone and began to dial. A recording answered,"Thank you for calling Nora's Harbor Midget Raceway. We're open Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from nine A.M. to midnight. Five laps are a dollar sixty per lap. Ten laps are one twenty-five per lap. Twenty-lap special, one dollar per lap. Thank you for calling Nora's Harbor Midget Raceway. Come on down and have your dream come true."

Gumi dialed the number again. She knew, absolutely knew, the voice belonged to him. It was the most beautiful voice she had ever heard from any boy. He sounded so _realistic_. So down-to-earth. Obviously uncomfortable with the job of making the recording. There was probably some old cranky boss who owned the whole thing and knew it was better to have some young boy's voice do the recording. This was the perfect voice. "Twenty-lap special, one dollar per lap." He did it so convincingly, so _enticingly_.

She was about to dial the number again when a shriek reverberated from teh downstairs hallway. She knew instantly that her sister had landed.

Gumi went out to the hall and looked downstairs. She could see Sonika whirling around, taking off her scarf and coat. It annoyed her the way Sonika's hair was able to stay prim, neat and bounce even in a snowstorm when it was down. Sonika, nineteen years old—and everyone, just everyone, said she was just gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous. She had turned out to be one of the most glamorous Comptometer operators in the world, which, Gumi knew, meant she was nothing but a keypunch operator and probably as inept at aht as she was at everythign in high school except making out.

Sonika looked up, caught Gumi. "GUMBALL!" she screamed,"Gumball, how's my _little Gumball_?"

Gumi loathed it when Sonika called her Gumball. Just because Gumi was a little chubby as a tot and gumballs had happened to have been her preferred candy to chew on, didn't mean that Sonika could keep at it now that she was much leaner and taller. Sonika had said over the years she was only being kind because she couldn't bear the fact that her poor kid sister was stuck with a real name like Megumi.

"Allen," Sonika yelled, "you've just got to meet my little sister."

Gumi descended farther and got a good look at Allen. He was tall, but didn't actually appeared quite as rugged as Sonika's previous boyfriends. Outwardly, he appeared smart, but mentally he didn't look like he was pulling a full train. He had a peaches-and-cream complexion, just like Sonika, and Gumi could picture the two of them running along beaches in white scanty bathing suits showing off their legs. Even though she was thoroughly annoyed with what was going on, what was most unbearable was that Sonika was practically doing a dance in her high heels. How anyone could survive wearing high heels in two feet of snow was beyond her.

"So how's tricks?" Sonika babbled. She grabbed Gumi and began to dance around with her, giving her a big hug and a kiss on each cheek which made her cascading hair slap Gumi's ears. Sonika was a shocking contrast to Gumi, oozing personality, extroverted, gorgeous, sexy, aggressive. She had been voted the best all-around body in high school. And she knew more than anyone that she had graduated only because she could do a rather exemplary baton act.

"This is Allen. Isn't he just a _dream_?" Sonika insisted on knowing.

"Very nice to meet you, Allen," Gumi said somberly.

Gumi was expecting him to say,"Oh my God, Sonika, she doesn't look anything like you. She looks like a nun."

Instead he flashed a big smile. "Nice to meet you, Gumball," he said.

By now Mrs. Megpoid and Al had made it into the hallway, and there was so much noise, Gumi became frightened that the cops might be called out. Much too much kissing and hugging, Gumi thought. She couldn't bear the way Sonika was making it clear it was _Oh, such a pleasure_ to meet Al. _Oh, such a pleasure_ that her mother had a new friend. In seconds, Mrs. Megpoid had corralled them all around the table and was pouring coffee. Sonika never stopped laughing or talking about all the things she and Allen were doing together—the movies, the concert, picnics on ice floes, ice skating! No magical experience was escaping their new relationship. Sonika would take a sip of coffee and then do a run around with a lipstick, which made her lips looked mirrored.

"Why, I think it would be wonderful to have you stay with us," Mrs. Megpoid managed to summerize from the laughter out of Sonika and the grunting of Allen. "You can have your old room and Allen can sleep on the couch down here."

"Oh no, mother," Sonika laughed. "You don't understand. We're _living_ together."

Gumi watched her mother for her reaction. Mrs. Megpoid paused, then smiled graciously.

"Oh, of course," their mother said. "Then you can both stay together in your old room. Will you be getting married?"

Sonika and Allen laughed so hard at that one, even Mrs. Megpoid winced.

Sonika sat upright. "No, you don't understand, Mom. I don't love him _that_ much. He's more or less a comfort, aren't you, Allen?"

"Yes, just a comfort." Allen laughed.

"How long have you been 'comforting' each other?" Gumi finally asked.

Sonika screamed. "Isn't she a delight? Isn't she just a delight, Allen?" Did you see? I told you she was funny. Hilarious~!"

Al looked as though he didn't know what on earth was going on, and just kept reaching out to grab very large pieces of Sara Lee coffee cake. The crumbs rolled down his shimmering shirt like water hitting oil.

"Say something _else_ funny," Sonika insisted. "I told Allen what a card you were. What a priceless card."

Gumi squirmed as everyone looked at her. She cleared her throat, but even then they kept looking. Finally, she said it. "So your name's Allen, short for Al?" she asked.

"Well, yes," Allen answered and looked at her curiously.

"Well, isn't that nice," Gumi pointed out. "Now Mom and Sonika _both_ have Als."

Sonika screamed so loudly this time Gumi thought glassware would shatter. In fact they were all laughing, and ordinarily she would have felt terrible. Lonesome, terrible, and sad. But she wasn't even in the room with them. She really wasn't even talking to them.

Her mind was on another wavelength which was speeding around curves and corners, and there were clowns beginning to put on makeup. A calliope was playing somewhere in the distance. Someone was climbing a trapeze rope, getting ready to swing. Somewhere in her mind she could hear a circus warming her up.

_Dear Diary_, she wrote that night. _I have fallen in love with a boy in the sports section. We haven't met yet, but when we do, I believe with all my heart that our two solitudes will protect and touch and meet each other. . ._

* * *

><p>AN:

Shortest. Chapter. YET. TTuTT


	4. Chapter 4

Gumi heard the music pounding through the floor of her room. Her eyes had barely opened from a dream about playing miniature golf with a dwarf, when she was reminded that Sonika had come home with her latest live-in to lounge around while their Greenwich Village apartment was being scraped and painted. She tried crawling back under the comforter, but that only emphasized the music. It was so forceful it made her toes shake.

She got her act together, brushed her teeth, went downstairs. There was Sonika twirling, jumping, dipping, shaking, _cascadin__g_― all of which was supposed to be known as dancing for Allen. Allen was still in pajamas, his legs swung over the arms of a chair, his lips pushing smoke rings of grass up into the air. He was clapping. "Go, Soni! Shake it!"

It looked like Sonika was going to totally fly up into the air. Either that or drill a hole in the floor. _A helicopter_, Gumi thought. _My sister is a green helicopter_.

"Good morning, Gumball!" Sonika called out. Her voice took on a sort of Doppler effect from her motions.

Allen just sort of scratched himself and smiled as his greeting.

"GOOD MORNING!" Gumi deliberately screamed at the top of her lungs, startling her sister and Allen. She stuck her fingers into her ears and plodded straight through the living room into the kitchen, slamming the door. There was sort of a swishing sound near her and she realized her mother was up and about.

"Gumi, I really think it's about time you and I had a talk," Mrs. Megpoid said.

"You know I love to chat, Mom," Gumi said, grabbing for the carrot juice and swigging it down.

Mrs. Megpoid moved quickly to set up a spot for Gumi at the table. She was parading as though deliberately showing off new Sears, Roebuck quilted bathrobe, and what appeared to be some sort of pearls around her neck. _Well, she's dressing for the man she loves_, Gumi said to herself.

"How's Al this morning?"

"Fine," Mrs. Megpoid said.

"Good. What do you want to talk about?"

"Nothing," Mrs. Megpoid started, "nothing _much_. I was just wondering if you were all right."

"What do you mean by 'all right'?"

"I mean your head. Does you head feel all right?"

"Yes, Mom. Why do you ask?"

"Because you're acting weirder than usual. I think your emotions are showing too much."

"How can my emotions show too much?"

"Well, you looked so angry last night," her mother reminded her. "Are you disturbed because Sonika and I have Als or is it because her boyfriend is going to stay with her in her room? Is that what's disturbing you?"'

"No," Gumi said. "I don't care what anyone else does as long as they don't do it in the street and frighten the horses."

"Would you like an English muffin with Parkay squirted into it and a slab of cheese?"

"Thanks, Mom."

"I think the problem is that you're becoming inconsiderate," Mrs. Megpoid elaborated, going to the toaster oven and ripping apart a muffin. "It's like you resent the fact that I date. You can't seem to bear that people dance, that people sing, that people on to each other _tenderly_ in this world. Allen even pointed it out and he just met you. I told him that you never had a boyfriend and that you're just jealous."

"You didn't, Mom, tell me you didn't."

"All right, I didn't, but I thought that would get your attention. What I did tell him was that every since I can remember, all you've had was electromagnets on the brain. Darling, boys don't want to caress an electromagnet."

"Look, Mom, I think there's a big difference between being an electromagnet and lassoing every used-car salesman who comes along."

"Al is going to own his own distributorship―BMW. He's going all the way to BMW. honey, what I'm trying to tell you is you're the one who's uptight, not me."

Gumi took another slug of carrot juice and started eating a tablespoon of butter.

"You're going to have to get with it, kid," Mrs. Megpoid continued. "You'd better start painting your lips and putting on some mascara or move to Fiji. I think only the men wear makeup in Fiji. Honey, I try to set an example for you. I wanted you to see that human beings can be affectionate to each other."

"Oh, you set some example, Mom," Gumi mumbled. "I remember you with that bus driver right here in the kitchen."

"He was a very imaginative man," her mother corrected. "And I really don't know what your problem is. It's probably hormones, _late_ hormones. Just remember that 'She who waits upon fortune is never sure of a dinner. The wheel goes 'round and 'round and some are up and some are down, and still the wheel goes 'round.' You're getting old enough to start having a little action for yourself instead of nagging me about mine. I only have a few years left for romance and I"m not going to let a bellyaching physics major of a daughter cramp my style. I'm very careful about the men I bring home. I check them out very carefully to make sure that they're not going to run around here with an axe. I'm getting old and I need someone to hold me, and tell me everything's going to be all right. And you and I both know it's not going to be you, kiddo. So lay off or move out. Do you hear me loud and clear? I love you, but I love myself just a little more. Got it?"

Gumi thought for a moment, angered by her mother's selfishness and lack of empathy and for being _blind_, above all else. "Got it, Mom."

Mrs. Megpoid grabbed the plastic bottle of Parkay and began injecting it into the English muffin. Gumi watched her mother's face twitch slightly as though there was still one more thing she wanted to say. Finally, her mother's mouth opened.

"You're a very pretty girl, Megumi," Mrs. Megpoid said softly. "Someday _some_ boy has got to like you."

* * *

><p><strong><em>xXx<em>**

* * *

><p>Gumi got out of school at three-twenty and by three-thirty she was at Nora's Harbor Midget Raceway on Lake Avenue. A high wire fence surrounded the huge piece of property. The main building was locked, but inside Gumi could see about fifty different kinds of pinball machines and electronic games. There was a long counter, and beyond that, picture windows looked out onto the raceway and small grandstand. A huge garage was attached to this building, protruding into the fenced area.<p>

_The repairs_, Gumi decided. _He must work there. He must come to this door mornings, walk past all those twinkling amusement games, turn right, and go through that door._

She could feel his spirit floating through the air. As scientific as she was, she did believe that presences could be felt. Her favorite short story was called "God's Talky Doll," in which a lady mental patient used to show up at a nightclub every day and play on the piano to leave a message of love for an evening bartender. Maybe this boy, this incredible boy, would know she had made her first visit.

* * *

><p>AN:

Sorry that it's late.


	5. Chapter 5

She checked Thursday in the morning, before school, and again after school. There wasn't a light or a sound or a breath of life at Nora's Harbor Midget Raceway. When they said only open on the weekends, they meant it.

Friday Gumi woke up late. She barely made it to school. In physics Mr. Hiirone asked her to discuss the substances attracted by an electrified body. That's what she felt like herself, an electrified body.

"And what is the magnetic variation where you live?" Mr. Hiirone also asked.

_Hope_, Gumi wanted to say, _hope is where I'm living at right now_.

School took so very long that day. In the cafeteria it took what seemed hours to get a piece of juicy meat that looked like filet of rodent. And she felt as though Chemistry class was eight full hours making hydrogen sulfide. And all the teachers asked her to read or construct or recite of perform. Only in study could she check How to Get Guys for the next chapter. Near the appendix there was an encouraging testimonial supposedly from a librarian's daughter.

"_I'm not a great beauty. My nose is a little too big, and my bust is a little too tiny—but this has never stopped me from being one of the most attractive girls in my hometown. What I learned was that a girl has got to create her own good luck nowadays. Friends can be counted on to supply some boys, but the only way for a nice girl not to run into a terribly lonely one is take boys where—and I mean anywhere—she finds them."_

At three-thirty she headed out the main entrance of the high school, lugging her toolbox, and turned in the opposite direction from home; and a full two blocks from the raceway she could hear the nose of the cars zipping, _roaring_. He would be there. The raceway was open and _he would be there_.

She had to walk along a full block of the fence before reaching the main building. Fifteen or so racers were zipping around the track; each paced a good distance from the others so the kids driving them wouldn't kill each other. Some of the divers looked like they had rushed over from the third grade and bought tickets.

She went in the front entrance and decided she wasn't quite up to looking at the horde of boys playing the pinball machines. She focused in on the counter instead, where a pair of two young blond teens was snatching up the money from some other kids. They looked like twins. Somehow they managed the fine art of conducting business without taking their eyes off another pair of Irish-looking twins who spoke like they had already had a beer too many.

"Ya want laps?" the girl twin asked Gumi.

"Oh, it's the first time I'm here," Gumi explained. "I just wanted to. . ."

Already the girl had tuned her out and was moving on to the next kid.

Gumi decided she had better play a pinball machine before she was bounced for loitering. She moved to one that had Wonder Woman lit up and double flippers. She put a quarter in. The machine did some electronic chattering and shot a ball into the slot. She fired the ball and as it beat its way around under the glass she let her eyes look toward the door at the far end of the counter. She could see bodies moving in and out, a glimpse of a well-lighted garage beyond, and a few carcasses of partially assembled midget race cars. Images began to clarify. One boy with a baseball cap, it wasn't him. A girl doing a sort of twist while talking to another boy with glasses. This passageway to the garage was obviously the _in_ place to be. This was the equivalent to the booth right next to the jukebox at _NekoShake!_. It seemed like proximity to machinery was always a criterion for status.

She began to feel very warm and opened her coat. Then she realized she was still holding her toolbox. She'd have to put it down, but she'd keep her left foot touching it so nobody could rip it off. A new figure had entered from the garage and was talking to the boy with glasses. At first he was in the shadows. The photo in the newspaper had not lied. The colors were slightly different. Everything about him was lighter. It was as though reality had made an adjustment, turned up a contrast switch. _He was the perfect boy._

His features seemed stronger now. A full smile and wide-open thirsty red eyes told her he was not a predator. He was the perfect weight, with a thick belt hugging his slim waist. The buckle announced in giant brass letters "DELL." He looked eighteen, tops. His sleeves were rolled up, and even the smudges of black grease on his arms and chin made him look like he had simply been anointed. She wanted to rush from the uncompleted pinball game into the passageway and hold him. She wanted to tell him that her bloodstream was gurgling like a brook. More than anything she wanted to hear his voice _clearer_.

She picked up her toolbox, moved nearer to the passage as though reading the advertisements circling the doorway. She was not less than five feet from him. His voice was slightly husky, low. It was the right voice for his body. It was a voice to cherish. His feet—they looked like nice feet in nice shoes. He stood attractively. A _princely posture_, she thought. And the enthusiasm, a masculinity as though he was a young vendor selling grapes, plump carrots and luscious cherries on the street. Yet it all seemed so natural. His hands were on his hips. Now one was against the wall, a leg raised on a small stool. He was in motion, _alive_. His Western-style shirt was wrinkled. The top two buttons opened showing a purple t-shirt peeking out. He looked exactly like a Christmas present waiting to be unwrapped.

Suddenly a woman, about fifty years old, came out of an office just behind the counter. Gumi caught the name on the door: _Mrs_. _Ann Sweet—Manager_. She watched the woman strut in high heels, black dress, and sleek golden blonde hair.

"Deli," Mrs. Sweet screeched over the din of the pinball machines. "Deli, I want to talk to you," she said, more like a command.

"Sure thing, Mrs. Sweet," Dell said, snapping to attention.

"You did a swell job on the repairs, kid," the woman chirped. "I asked Longya and he says you can move on to the new cars. He'd like to have them all assembled and on the track by Sunday latest."

Gumi watched Dell grab for a rumpled package of cigarettes and popped one in. "Sure thing," he promised before turning away.

One of the blond twins at the counter was now riveted on Gumi. "Can I do something for you?" the voice sounded slightly masculine, wanted to know. Fraternal twins.

Gumi moved her toolbox from her left hand to the right. She tried to form words in her throat, but nothing happened.

"I said, do you _want_ something?" the boy insisted on knowing.

Gumi knew she'd have to force herself. She pushed the air to the upper part of her lungs and then wheezed out. "_Dell_," she said, so softly she knew it didn't have a chance to be heard over the din.

"Whatcha say?"

"I want to see _Dell_."

The boy let out a knowing laugh and screamed at his counter mate. "Hey, Rinny, somebody to see Dell." They both let out a laugh. Gumi didn't have the faintest idea what was so funny.

The counter girl yelled down the passageway. "Hey Dell, hey Dell, one of your girl friends is here to see you."

Gumi wanted to die. What a cruel, horrible thing for that thin little blond witch to say. Dell had been heading back toward the garage. She knew he hadn't heard and decided to move straight down the passage toward him. She lost sight of Dell for a moment.

"Excuse me. Excuse me, please," she said, squeezing through with her fake fur and toolbox slapping into someone's knee. "Please excuse me."

Now she was in another doorway. The large garage ignited with the sun-strong fluorescent lights. It seemed empty. Nothing alive, only the carcasses of midge racecars.

"Dell," Gumi called too quietly. Then she said louder, more firmly, _"Dell!"_

She jumped as Dell came rolling out from under a blue race car. He had been working on a mechanic's dolly, and rolled toward her like a body on roller skates. He grabbed onto a fender and stopped. Still horizontal on the floor, he said, "You called me?"

"I wanted to talk to you."

Gumi's throat froze. She felt like she had just been dipped into a cryogenic bath, frozen alive. The only motion she could force was to hang her toolbox against her leg.

"Hey, look," Dell said, "I've got to get these two buggies finished. You're not supposed to be back here—insurance purposes, y'know. What do you want?"

Gumi put the toolbox on a workbench. She opened it. "I have some tools. I brought some tools I've never used. My father works at a scientific company in New York and he gave me this set. They were in Lamborghini promo kit for pit workers in Monaco. The Grand Prix a few years ago. My father doesn't live with us, he's in New York," she found herself muttering.

She lifted out a plastic case of shiny precision tools: a timing key, a silver souvenir set of wrenches, a bevy of beautiful metallic assists to perfect borings and filings for plugs and valves, cams and cam shafts, pistons.

"They're for you," Gumi said. "I'm not into race cars, but I thought you could use them. My father wouldn't mind." Still, she was muttering.

Dell lifted himself from the mechanic's dolly and stood perpendicular. His eyes rolled over the tool set. He looked shocked. "Look, I don't know what they hell you've been smoking, but I'm in no mood for a freak trip."

Gumi felt her throat freeze again. She grabbed it and shook it, making words spill out. She was more shocked than he was. "I'm sorry; I thought you'd like them. You don't have to accept them, of course, but I just figured I'd never use them, and I thought you'd like them."

"I don't even _know_ you," he said. "I don't know who you are. What's going on here? You're freaking me out, you really are."

Gumi put her gift back, picked up her tool kit, and clutched it tightly to her. She began to back toward the door. "I saw your picture in the paper," she wheezed, "and I thought you were someone I could talk about gear ratios and. . ." She noticed his hands reaching up to his head, rubbing his temples as though a little massage would help him stop feeling that he was going mad.

"You saw my picture in the paper?" Dell asked, his mouth hanging open in disbelief. "You saw my picture and you figured I wanted tools?"

Gumi felt as though she would collapse. She turned and started into the passageway, but turned back around. "I'm planning to open a Danko gas station and. . ." Now she was only able to exhale snippets of thoughts. "I go to Port Terra Kane High School. You have nice lights. . ."

Suddenly she was aware of the black, birdlike form of Mrs. Sweet swooping behind her. Mrs. Sweet yelled into the garage,"Hey, Deli, Longya wants to take his break now. Get out there, okay, hon?"

Gumi turned swiftly. She began to swim up the passage.

"Did you see that girl?" She heard Dell asking. "Did you see her?"

"_Forget_ the girls," Mrs. Sweet ordered. "Just get out there."

In a moment Gumi was lost in the middle of the pinball machines. She would hide behind the crowd and bombardment of sound, which was now blurring intensity. She managed to slide into an instant-photo machine and pull the curtain just as Mrs. Sweet and Dell came hurrying out. Mrs. Sweet went into her office and shut the door. Dell kept going and went out the door to the track. Now he was wearing a McKee Vo-Tech jacket, which only made him appear even more prince-like.

Gumi tucked her hair up under a wool skullcap. That would do it. He'd never be ale to recognize her. She could just go out and sit in the grandstand. The toolbox was the only giveaway, but she could put that behind her.

There were only fifteen kids sitting in the grandstand. There was no wind, but it was still cold enough. She saw what had to be Longya talking to Dell for a moment. Then Longya ran inside and disappeared in Mrs. Sweet's office.

Dell was now controlling the track. He had to put new customers into the race cars and collect their tickets every time they wanted to do a lap. She soon caught on to the procedure. There was a double pair of white lines, but only one race car at a time could fit. The front wheels had to be lined up on those white lines in order to signal a green light. When the green light flashed, that meant the proper interval had gone by before the last race car had left on the track. Leading up tot he starting positions. Then she noticed the helmet rack. Once the kids had their tickets, they ran to a helmet rack and picked out their headgear. Dell then told them which car to get into.

She thought Dell looked terrific against the bizarre snowscape, waving on the steaming engines with their drivers. A yellow scarf leaped around his neck as he twisted, jerked, turned left and right. His smile flashed. His eyes glittered. He was preening like a peacock.

A moment later she was aware of Longya bounding back out onto the track. "Hey, you're screwing up the lineup," Longya complained.

"Look, I'm telling them what to do, but they're not smart, y'know," Dell started.

"You're not Einstein, either," Longya countered. "That's why I spent three weeks showing you what to do."

"Look, I'll watch 'em, okay?" Dell said proudly.

"You'd better," Longya warned and ran back inside.

"Step right up, folks. Step right up," Dell started yelling to no one special. "Every body wins at the Grand Prix. Keep your eye on the computer readout. Check your time. The record is fifty-one seconds. Try to beat that record." Then he did a little kick in the air.

Gumi adored his clowning. He put a couple of girls into race cars and collected their tickets. "Go directly to jail," he told them. "Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars." His laugh was so infectious, his wit so remarkable, Gumi decided. _He's compensating. He knows he's destined for bigger things_, she thought. This is only one pit stop on what will be a ride to his Racetrack of Destiny.

"Drive right past Princess Grace's palace, turn left at the pizza stand, and go straight to Rome for a little pinch," Dell yelled.

The girls in the cars were not amused, Gumi could see. But she thought it was marvelously funny, and now he was waving at the grandstand. She had always known she would fall in love with an extrovert. The white and scarlet colors of his school jacket were so theatrical. He was blowing kisses at the grandstand now. "I love you. I _adore_ you. Thank you for your generous attention and applause! May Kris Kringle be kind to you this year!"

A racer with a kid returned from a lap, almost running Dell over.

"Hey, dumbass, you ought to stick to bumper cars."

_He's so forceful_, Gumi realized—good humored and forceful, a rare combination. He started singing. A beautiful voice. _Oh, my God, and he's dancing and spinning_—a jump, a leap, a _split!_

Longya was running down and yelling,"Don't freak out on me now, buster. I don't care how many smokes you've had!"

Dell began to speak very loudly, addressing the audience more than Longya. "I'm not freaking out, Longya. Longya, would I freak out on you?"

"You're gone again, aren't cha? I told Ann not to hire you."

"I'm not," Dell protested. "Only my eardrums! They're the ones that sucked up all the grass! Besides, you wanted me lively."

"I said to show the crowd a good time," Longya brayed. "I didn't want you _idiotic_."

Gumi noticed the joy flood suddenly out of Dell's face. Instantly, he looked sick, pained. He was hurtling to earth from such a joyous pinnacle._ He's so emotional_, Gumi worried, marveled. It seemed as though all the race cars had slowed to a halt. Dell seemed to be looking around for some sort of salvation. Suddenly he turned, and just pushed Longya aside. He marched toward the main building.

"Where are you going, jerkass?"

"It ain't for another smoke break."

"You get back here in an hour or you're fired."

"You bet, Louie," Dell called back. "You can just bet your pompous ass on that."

And then he was zipping past the pinball crowd, past the twin blondes, and out the front door.

* * *

><p>AN:

I gotta stop writing Fics that are in the past, the way how they talked and how it should sound like (especially since english isn't my first language) is giving me a headache. *A*"

Regardless of all of these difficulties, I've enjoyed reading the comments and it makes me so happy to know that you readers really like this so far. ^^ Well. . . So far. . . And it's so hard trying to write like a love-struck girl. ^^"


	6. Chapter 6

Gumi hit seven people accidentally with her toolbox as she raced after him. Outside, she saw him walking under a streetlamp near where Annos Street passed under the approach to the Bennette Bridge. She rushed quickly after him, concerned that the clanking noise of wrenches in the toolbox would make him think a snowplow was bearing down on him. Before she could catch up to him, the turned into the Net Inn.

Gumi halted outside of the saloon and peered through the red neon sign in the window, She could see Dell moving gracefully to the bar, ascending a stool. He so looked so grown-up and smooth placing his order. Even in depression he was breathtakingly attractive. She felt as though she could do a complete term paper on the magnetism she felt toward him. He was a giant electromagnet and she was a helpless bag of iron fillings. If he were to turn and look at her, she felt, her entire body would rise off the pavement and hurtle through the Net Inn window. Rather than risk that, she opened the door and went into the bar.

She stood next to him, not approaching the bar, just next to him. There was a crowd of guzzling shipyard workers and some old guys from the Bethlehem dry docks. The bartender was so busy he didn't even notice her.

As if Fate had tapped him on the shoulder, Dell turned around. He must have felt her presence. He did a fix on her, and then looked back at his cigarette. "Look, I've got some problems," he said softly. "Some stuff to work out. The last thing I need is a broad with tools."

Gumi admired how clearly he expressed himself.

Dell took a long drag of his smoke and looked back at her, blowing a cloud of smoke above her head, causing her wince at the smell and action. "I don't need a monkey on my back, or whatever you got in mind. _Comprende?_ I'm in the twilight zone. Please do a scramo. One swift scramo coming up, all right?"

He was a little high, she knew. His eyes seemed to look past her out the front window, and latch onto the string of bridge lights. Then he snapped his head and sucked the rest of the cancer stick until it was a stub that fit snuggled between his fingers. He dug through his pocket for his packet for another. Once more he looked at her.

"Do you have brain damaged?" he inquired.

"You're _wonderful_," Gumi manged to utter just as the jukebox burst with a trio singing "laughing on the outside, crying on the inside. . ."

Dell started shaking his head, running his finger around his lower lip. He looked like he was in too much inner turmoil to protest any further.

Gumi stood her ground. She knew if ever she needed courage, this would be the moment. This was the train about to leave without her. This was the boat sailing, and she would miss it if she didn't act. This was the turning point of her life. For the first time she'd have to utter clearly and quickly what was more important to her than any thought she had ever imagined.

_"I love you very much,"_ Gumi said.

Dell looked at her. Gumi knew it would be difficult for him to understand. She would have to be patient. She could see it from his point of view and knew it might take time. _"We're meant for each other, Dell,"_ Gumi clarified. "At least I know I'm meant for you. I think you're a very fine boy, Dell."

"And I think you're missing a few marbles," he huffed.

"I want to help you, Dell. I want to devote my life to you. To help you reach the pinnacle of your chosen career. Dell, I know this sounds crazy, but when I saw your picture in the newspaper, I . . ."

"Shut up," he requested. "Kindly shut the hell up."

Gumi was thankful he wasn't looking at her now. But she knew he was listening. Now her words could come easier. "I watched you at the racetrack. You are destined for greatness. You are a royal male who has been placed on earth to lead. You a gift to humanity. That Longya and Mrs. Sweet don't appreciate you. I watched them. No one does. You're too good, Dell. I could help you achieve the mountains you wish to climb. Let me be the woman to drape myself on your gladiator's back and whisper,'Thou wilt be king,' whenever you falter. Whether your ambition is to win at Sebring, or to race at the Indy 500—or to burn rubber around the precipices of Monaco. Whatever your dream, I'll help it come true. I can change tires. I have some ideas for special fuels, carburetors, oil additives. I'll forsake my dream for yours."

Dell finished his smoke and promptly disposed of it on the ground. He stood up and walked right past Gumi. She stood still, watched his hand reach for the front door. Then he stopped, turned, and walked back to her. The red neon light streaming through the smoke from hours of burning cigarettes glowed behind his head, making him seem like a true divinity.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Gumi. Megumi Megpoid, but most call me Gumi," she said, her lips twitching under his brilliant gaze.

"You're wacked out, Megumi Megpoid," he offered. "You're really wacked out."

Then he was gone.

* * *

><p>She got home before seven p.m. She was so excited, she didn't even mind her mother, or Al, or Sonika. Even dinner was terribly unimportant. The dream of Dell was all the nourishment she needed. Upstairs, later, she found her diary.<p>

_Dear Diary,  
><em>

_Today we met. He knows I'm alive. He's a dream come true, a darling, a prince with a grease gun. In his own sweet bashful way, he very much wanted to know my name._

She stopped writing. There was something different about her diary. It had been in the wrong spot in her bookcase. Somebody had touched her diary. Somebody had been _reading_ her diary, and she knew very well who that was. She slammed the diary shut, charged out of her room, and practically kicked open the door to Sonika's room. Sonika was alone, sipping a martini and putting on makeup.

"How dare you read my diary?" Gumi accused.

"I didn't read it, honey," Sonika said flatly. "I skimmed it."

"I can't have anything. You're back one day and already you're snooping, messing around with my life. I don't grill you about Allen. I don't snoop through your pocketbook or forage about in your Village apartment."

"Oh, Gumball, you're so sensitive."

"I am not sensitive. You're_ in_sensitive."

"Allen had to go up and check on the painters. They were doing a green trim in the hall. If there is anything that would make me barf, it's a green trim."

"Our hair is green," Gumi reminded her, to which Sonika made a point to ignore. Gumi felt like going over, grabbing Sonika's cascading hair, and yanking it.

"Take a shower and get dressed. We're going out," Sonika ordered.

"Skippo," Gumi said. "Let's not and say we did."

"Look, Gumball, it's about time you learned a few things."

"From you? Ha, that's a laugh." Gumi made the mistake of hesitating. "Where do you want to take me?"

Within an hour, Sonika had pulled out every sentimental gimmick in the book. First she had gotten Gumi to take a shower on the basis that cleanliness is _always_ in order. Then she convinced her that she owed it to the world to do something about her hair. Then she owed it to her mother to put on a little makeup, so that her mother would be proud to have a daughter; and then she convinced her that Gumi would be an absolutely cruel sister if she didn't come along with her to hear a little music in a delightful new club in St. Morgan called Chipmunks.

"What is this, a ladies' club?" Gumi wanted to know.

Sonika had downed another martini and gave a big spiel about new life-styles and being open, and the new role of the modern woman. Gumi decided that if the new role of the modern woman was to down four martinis in a half hour, she'd have to do without it. She found herself being dressed up interfering with her hearing, as though her entire mind was focused on the heinously orange dress Sonika had poured her into. It had a diagonal neckline that gave her a distinct feeling she had just lost a Miss Arkansas contest, and she knew enough about cosmetics chemistry to know that her eyebrows were sporting a touch of graphite, her lipstick probably had a wax base derived from illegal sperm whale oil, and her mascara was really nothing more than colored shellac.

"You see, honey," Sonika was explaining,"when you finally do get a boy to go for the bait, you've got to learn to do things. You can't just lie back and rest like in the old days. I mean, if this boy is supposed to come back for second helpings, you're going to have to wiggle your tail a little. If he wanted a corpse, he'd go to a cemetery."

Gumi was thankful her sister was interrupted by the master of ceremonies on the microphone. He turned out to be the comedian. He did a lot of corny jokes, like "A bummer is not having a drop of gin in the house and realizing why the kids' lemonade stand was such a smashing success. Ha, ha, ha!" All the ladies laughed. In a very strange way, Gumi began to feel very uncomfortable that almost everyone in the audience looked like her mother. Those who didn't looked like her sister. They all looked wired! Absolutely _wired_.

Finally the emcee finished. The drums began to roll. The curtain opened. The women in the audience began to scream and shout. A parade of five men came out and began to do bumps and grinds.

"This isn't what I think it is?" Gumi asked.

"Oh, it _is_," Sonika laughed. "Don't you just love it?"

Gumi sat horrified. The men started to take off articles of clothing. First a bow tie, then one took off his jacket. One started to disrobe while doing a tap dance. It seemed like the older the women in the audience were, the louder they screamed. One of the men started doing a disco, while handing out bananas. Gumi felt as though she was losing her mind. A woman sitting at a table behind her knocked her with her elbow.

"Look at those legs!" she cried. "Holy garters! Look at those legs!"

Most of the women stood and cheered and yelled anything that came into their heads: "Honey, are you built! Whoopee!" they yelled at the male exotic dancers. There were catcalls, laughter, Bronx cheers.

"You can leave your shoes under my water bed anytime!" Sonika screamed to one guy who looked like The Hulk.

Suddenly a face caught Gumi's eye. In the lineup of male wigglers was one young boy. He looked a bit younger than Dell. Darker hair, more delicate perhaps. He looked totally embarrassed, as though he were on the verge of tears at having to go in front of that audience and strip to make money. He had his shirt off. The women were clapping. "More! More! Go, you hunk, go!"

There was something cruelly tribal about the rhythmic stamping that seized the female audience. It was like a crowd had assembled for a stoning. Gumi couldn't bear to watch them zero in on the boy's discomfort and innocence. She stood up from the table. She was so furious she couldn't do anything but glare at Sonika. Then she shoved her way out through the sea of ladies. She'd gotten a full block away before Sonika was about to catch her.

"What'd you do that for? It was twelve bucks a ticket, you know," Sonika complained.

"I don't care if it was free," Gumi shot back.

"Look, Gumball, I'm sorry I read your diary. I did it for you. I said to myself,'Oh my God, my poo sister is fifteen years old and she hasn't gone all the way yet'."

_"All the way!"_ Gumi practically screamed. "Did you see the face on that boy in there wiggling for all of you sickos? ! Did you see that face? He was _dying_. I think there's a lot more important things in this world than going all the way, if you ask me!"

Sonika let her cool down a while. "Gumi," she finally started up,"you're missing out on so much. I just wanted you to loosen you up, to see you happy. Honey, I don't care if you _do_ end up running a gas station. I don't care even if you become the most famous astrophysicist in the world. You'll still need a little action or you won't be happy. Nowadays you can't let an erogenous zone go by."

"I'm not sure I even know what an erogenous zone is."

"I'll get you a book! You've got to check them all out," Sonika insisted. "You've got to attack with every inch of your skin. You've got to know how to make it a new and unique experience for a boy."

"Look, I'm a girl, not an _amoeba_." Then in a flash, Gumi was in tears. The tears rolled down as far as her chin before they froze. She didn't wan to hear another word about Sonika's view on men. There was something missing. Something forgotten, as though Sonika had completely skipped over at least one man who was none of the things she said men were.

Sonika was forgetting their father. Of course, her sister hadn't had that special connection with him that she did. Gumi was his girl. On the freezing street, with the Chipmunks sign blazing over her left shoulder, she remembered the sound of his step on the porch when he would come home from work each evening before the divorce. She would rush for her favorite spot for their nightly game of hide and seek. Always she'd hide under the daybed on the porch, the wicker daybed, and she'd watch his feet walk forward, then back, and she'd hear his wonderful voice saying,"Now where is little Gumi hiding? Where is she?_ Where's my Gumi?_"

Finally, the suspense would kill her, and a burst of giggles would give her away. In a moment his smiling face would appear, horizontal on the floor. With his big, wonderful blue eyes, he'd wink a few times.

"Oh, there's my girl. _There's my little girl_."

* * *

><p>AN:

A little early update.


	7. Chapter 7

Gumi got up very early Saturday morning. She washed, put on her best slacks, a black turtleneck sweater, and an orange vest with two thick lines on the bottom. She looked in the mirror and decided that a little makeup wouldn't hurt. Shellacked eyes weren't all that ugly, and maybe Sonika had managed to bring her hair around to look like something other than green crabgrass. She made it out of her house rather painlessly and then slid her way along the icy sidewalks, past the school, and on to the Nora's Harbor Midget Raceway.

The track was open and the guy called Longya was testing out a car in the starting position. Inside, a handful of kids were already mesmerized by the pinball machines, and the lustful blond twins were very busy behind the counter preparing for the day.

"Is Dell in yet?" Gumi asked.

"Doesn't come on till four," the blond with the enormous bow said. She was wearing a button that said,_ Free the Indy 500_.

"Do you have a phone number?" Gumi began to stutter. "Maybe I can call him if you think he's up."

"Doesn't have a phone," Blond Number Two said, ducking slightly and looking strangely out the picture window. _"And he's not up!"_

Gumi checked the direction where the boy was looking. Across from the racetrack was a dilapidated looking building. All the structures on the block had been condemned or demolished, but this one stood out like a sore thumb.

"Does he live there?" Gumi asked.

"If you want to call it that," the one with the button said.

"Thank you." Gumi pulled her fake fur closer around her. She was amazed how much warmer she was able to stay without having to lug the cold metal toolbox. She almost fell in the middle of the street, and again going up the few steps to the entrance of the building. The door was open. She went into the foyer. There were four apartments with buzzers. Apparently none of them worked, because the wires were all hanging out. Beneath one bell, written crudely with a pen, was the name of _Dell Honne_. What a brilliant name, Gumi thought, absolutely brilliant. Next to the name was scrawled _1A_.

Gumi pushed open the door into the inner hall. Apartment 1A was the apartment on the downstairs right. She rapped on the door, but there was nothing. She rapped again, but still nothing. She went back out and checked the writing on the bell. It was very clear—Dell Honne lived in 1A, and unless there were two people with the name Dell Honne in this tiny apartment house, she had to have the right apartment.

She went back to 1A and knocked even more loudly. Then she began to call, "Hey in there. Hi! _Hello!_" She was really warming up now, and decided to knock more importantly. It was after _nine_. She was certain he would want to get up on such a beautiful day.

There was a creak. She knew life was stirring beyond the door. Slowly, it opened. Dell stood there, the morning light rushed down the hall and flashed over his body. He was wearing jeans but no shoes or shirt. She had the strangest impulse to just reach out and touch his stomach, but she decided her hand was so cold he might buckle over with cardiac arrest.

"What do you want?" Dell wheezed, squinting at the bolt of light bouncing into his eyes.

"Did I wake you?" Gumi wanted to know.

"Pfffft. . ."

"I wanted to apologize for the way I behaved last night. I realized you must have really thought I was bananas."

He scoffed.

"Can I come in?"

He looked too weak to answer, too cold and sleepy. He turned, leaving the door ajar. Gumi decided it was his own special way of inviting her in.

Stabs of light from the street bombarded through broken slices of shutter in the windows of the small studio apartment. Dell went back under the covers of the bed, which was nothing more than a mattress lying in the living room next to an old television set. There was a lot of exposed brick and a kitchen that looked as if it had been lifted out of a history book to demonstrate the conditions of living in the 1930's Depression. Clothes draped on a partition, tossed into corners and dangling off the arms of a stiff wooden chair. An open suitcase lay outside the small bathroom.

_Great men often have humble beginnings,_ Gumi reminded herself. She watched Dell roll over and reach out to the little dented refrigerator. He grabbed a beer, propped himself up slightly on this pillow and began to sip it.

"You want a beer?" he asked.

"No, thank you," she answered. "Do you usually drink this early?"

"Nope. I'm usually sleeping this early."

"How long have you lived here?"

"A couple of months. I had a friend, Meito, who paid the rent for the month and he took off for Florida to drive nitroglycerin trucks. They pay two hundred bucks an hour if you live. At least that's what he told me."

Gumi decided this was the exact time she could use all the advice she had read on how to pick up boys. The way she had come on before was all wrong. _Subtleties_, a boy needed _subtleties_.

"Your hands look very strong," Gumi said. The book had told her this was an absolutely great opening line because it makes a boy feel powerful.

"Are you stoned?" he asked.

She decided she didn't hear his question. "You're a Pisces, aren't you?" The book had told her he'd be flattered by her interest and curious to know which on of his wonderful traits had tipped her off.

He groaned and buried his face into his mattress. "_Why me?_" he mumbled, skipping right over Pisces. He pulled his face back up and blew away stray strands of hair from his face. "Why did you have to zero in on me? Where do you live? Where do you come from?" He looked as if he was floundering in pain.

"I live on Minno Avenue," Gumi said, delighted he was interested. "I live with my mother. My sister is staying with us for a couple of weeks." That was enough about herself. She'd better get the conversation back to him. "I'm sorry about last night, but I saw your picture in the paper. You looked like a nice person," she said, "and I just wanted to get to know you." The book had told her that no boy could resist the direct, honest approach.

"You carry around a toolbox for fun?"

"It's my career. I want to open my own gas station someday. I'm very good with my hands and. . ."

"I hated school," he cut her off.

"I saw your jacket. I knew a kid who went to McKee Vo-Tech. Kai Kim."

Dell exhaled a puff of smoke, grabbed onto a chair, and managed to stand. "Never heard of him." He stumbled into the bathroom and shut the door.

She heard water running, splashing. His voice came out through the door sounding like a seal barking. "I don't know what the hell _I_ want to do."

"You're so young. Nobody's really supposed to know. . ."

"I'm _nineteen_," came Dell's reply, along with a few chocking sounds. He opened the door and came out drying his hair. If only Michelangelo or Van Gogh were there right now, Gumi knew this boy would be an inspiration for a mural called _A Prince Drying His Hair_ or something.

"What are you staring at me for?" he wanted to know, checking his navel and chest. "Do I have a cockroach on me?"

Gumi couldn't speak, such was the beauty of this boy before her.

"Hey, look. If I look beat, it's because I didn't get much shut-eye last night, you know, and I drank six packs of Michelob."

"You l-look fine," Gumi stuttered, "f-fine!"

Dell thought that over a minute. "That's nice," he said. "Nice of you to say so." He took another swig of beer. "Hey," he started, "do you want to come and look at a van with me?"

"I would like that very much," Gumi answered quickly.

"I told this guy I would look at his GMC's seventy-one. It's got six cylinders, four speeds. He says it's got a sink, stove, ice box, the works, just smashed up a bit, and the transmission is sort of shot. He only wants a couple hundred bucks for it, so I thought I'd check it out."

She felt like she was in a move as she watched him finish getting dressed—that he had actually asked her_ to go look at a GMC van with him! It was their first date!_ It was even better than that. All those dashing, smiling boy stars on the covers with the captions underneath would no longer be journalistic tricks. Oh no! Now when she looked at a super party issue of those celestial celluloid boys, she'd know they really _could_ be talking to her. "Sizzling hot pinups of all your faves— Ren Ikune, Reizo Raine, Sora Anjou, Liro Kaze, and more in this issue."

That picture of gorgeous Ren Ikune and the quote beneath his sweet dimples: "Let's have a cozy picnic for two." Reizo singing his heart out, a gold medallion around his neck: "Come with me on my love boat." Reizo with a chimpanzee on the set, his lips open, hair bouncing with highlights: "Let's monkey around at the circus." And Liro, Liro who was the only one on television who even came near Dell in charisma; a photo of Liro saying, "Be my roller-skating date! Be my party girl." And the super teen contests: Make your summer last forever—win a party on us. I'll sing my new love song just for you. Win my cuddly bear and the shirt off my back. Those oh-so-adorable boys in the magazines that all the girls forked over $1.25 for. Oh, no, it wasn't exploitation! It was reality. If Dell Honne could invite her to check out a GMC '71 value van, there was hope for every plain simple girl on Earth.

The truck in a junkyard on Richmond Terrace.

Gumi marveled at the way Dell spoke to the owner, a bear of a man who seemed really quite devoted to scrap business. He gave Dell the key. Dell motioned for Gumi for her to get in the truck with him. He started the engine, and in moments pulled the truck out onto Richmond Terrace. The roar of the engine was deafening.

"I hope I didn't worry you too much about all those thing I told you last night at the Inn," Gumi yelled over the clanking.

"I don't even remember it," Dell yelled back. "I remember thinking you were Rebecca the Riveter or Sally the Spark Plug or something like that. Do you really know anything about motors?"

"Not much about race cars, but a van, that's more up my line. When my father was living with us, we'd always be in a shack out in the back taking something apart. We never got into high-performance equipment. Did they give you all that at McKee Vocational?"

"Your mom and pop are divorced?"

"Yes," Gumi said. "He works as a special researcher in New York, for places like Allied Chemical and companies like that—so I get to see him once in a while. You'd like him. He always helped me with school."

He shifted a gear and bellowed, "I hated school. I hated everything. Anything I ever learned was the hard way." Then he changed the subject as though he couldn't bear thinking about school. "What do you think of this wreck? What do you think is wrong with it?"

"You really want to know?"

"Yeah."

"Well, the carburetion's way off—it's not letting the juice in," Gumi started. "And the ignition, it's not exactly lighting the fire, if you get what I mean. The compression is way off. If you're going to want this buggy to take you up any hills, you're going to have to add compression to put muscle in the stocker. Why did you hate school?"

"It wasn't just school. I hated everything and everything hated me."

"Where's your family?"

"They live out in Travis, just a couple of miles away. They're glad to be rid of me. My mother and father used to give me advice on everything. They made me feel like I couldn't do anything, like I was a real waste. 'Oh Dell, we know you're into drugs, Dell. Stand up tall, Dell. You look like a teenage hunchback. Don't drag your feet, Dell. Use your napkin, you're dribbling. You're disgusting the way you suck up your soup, Dell.' My father was worse than she was—used to keep records of my nail biting, and finger drumming, and foot tapping. 'Stop squinting,' he'd always say. Stop squinting and sniffling and twitching, and making those faces."

"But don't all parents do that?" Gumi asked, although she was slightly unnerved by the father's record keeping.

"Not twenty-four hours a day. They got on my case so bad I used to lie down in bed and stare at the ceiling, and they would come in and ask if I had overdosed on something. Finally, my father just asked me to get out."

"Why?"

"Well, he said he was thinking about the whole thing, and he decided that I was worthless and stupid and that there wasn't enough room for me in the house."

Dell stopped for a light, raced the engine for a moment. "Geez, the valves sound rotten." The light changed and he shifted, and the van shot forward.

"He wanted me to work," he went on. "I can't hold a job. My mother wanted me out because she was into a whole trip of her own. They didn't know me. My mother and father didn't have the faintest idea who I was. They used to think I was just having a good time. I was Good-Time Deli, and life was a ball, that's what they thought. They didn't know how depressed I was about it. They didn't care that I was worried about getting old, dying, being tossed aside at any given moment. Sometimes when I was laying in bed, I would just shake because I knew someday I would have to die, and I knew that was going to be a real bad trip. They thought I was really dumb, and I didn't think about the human condition.

They didn't bother to ask me about my dreams where ugly Father Time would come after me with a hatchet and start slicing me into pieces. They never took me anywhere, so they didn't see me in a crowd or in an elevator with a pack of people. They didn't care about how horrible I felt that I was such a flop and a misfit. 'Always got the rat's nest uncombed,' they'd say to me, or 'You need braces. You got dandruff again! Your nose is too big. You're too thin.' Nobody gave a damn to build up _my_ compression to get the fire going in the stoker. _No-sir-ee_!"

Gumi watched him grow silent. She was sorry now she hadn't interrupted him. He seemed to be falling now, falling into something very painful. She sat still for a moment, letting the noise of the engine and gears rumble through the van. She lifted her hand and put it on his arm. She just wanted him to know that she was there and that she believed in him, and she would do anything she could to bring him the kingdom that she felt was rightfully his. _This lost and misbegotten prince_, she thought.

They were on Richmond Avenue now. He sowed, then stopped at a light. NekoShake!'s soda shop was on the corner. There was a group of kids all in front watching the parade of dragsters. Now they were starting at the van.

"Miss Nekomura wants me to put in some fluorescent lights," she said. "Do you ever go into NekoShake! ?"

"Get out," Dell said.

Gumi thought she hadn't heard correctly.

"Please, get out." His request came more desperately.

Gumi waited a moment longer, opened the door and stepped down into the slush of the street. Something told her she should just away then, that for some reason Dell needed sudden privacy and she shouldn't question it. It wasn't something she felt she should take personally. But perhaps he had been angry. She turned back, looked into the window. "Are you all right, Dell?" she asked.

The light changed, Dell accelerated, but not before Gumi saw the tears flowing down his face.

Her entry into her diary that evening came easily and simply:

_Dear Diary, If I were to die now, I would want the world to know that I am more in love with Dell Honne than I even dreamed. . ._

* * *

><p>AN:

I'm certainly doing no favors for Gumi, aren't I? I can't help but laugh at what I've written and typed up. She's so cute and adorable and naive.

And I'm very sorry for the delay. I've been busy juggling writing, work, family and. . . Well, it's really just life in general. I'm thinking of going on hiatus until around December. It's not fixed or anything, I just won't be on as often. There's also a poll on my page and I've been thinking of typing up a one-shot, but I need to know which of those boys would fit the bill. X3 It'd be a lot of help! :D

Thanks for reading and if you take the time to vote. ^^


	8. Chapter 8

Sunday Gumi finished the fluorescent light installation at_ NekoShake!_ Then Mr. Hiyama called and said he had driven up to Vermont for the weekend and that his wife was home and her car wouldn't start, so she went over and got that under control. Then Mrs. ( or is it Mister?) Yokune had put her into Mr. Namine, who wanted a bookcase just like the one she had done for Mrs. Yokune before, so Gumi took care of the measurements on that.

In all she collected over forty-three dollars in payments and deposits, and she filed the money in envelopes. There was too much cash building up, so she'd have to make a deposit and start pulling down interest on it. But with every nail, every stroke of a brush, every moment of charging a battery — she thought about Dell. She worried about Dell.

It took her completely through the afternoon to finish the chores. When she got home, a sort of celebration was going on. It was a bit like a cocktail party in a singles bar. Sonika was giggling and undulating. Allen was back, flexing his muscles. The disco music was blasting. Her mother seemed sweeter, even her boyfriend, Al, seemed kinder. _Like just plain folks,_ Gumi thought. _Just plain folks having a good time._

She knew it was the sight of Dell's tears that had rendered her so compassionate, her sensitivity to every turned up to full power. Her sister, her mother and her boyfriend — they were being lovely to each other, and they were being lovely to her.

"Have I got a surprise for you," Sonika said, giving Gumi a big hug and kiss.

"I don't think I can take any more surprises," Gumi said.

"Oh, Gumball, you just get scrubbed up, paint that face, and put on a smile. Good things are going to happen to you tonight," Sonika promised.

"We're not going to Chipmunks again, are we?"

"I love your sense of humor, Gumball. Love it," Sonika repeated.

Gumi went upstairs, got showered, dressed, put on a little shellac and beeswax. She only had one real dress left, and it was so frilly, she felt like the farmer's daughter in it. Finally, she sat on the edge of her bed and decided maybe she should write some more in her diary. If she waited long enough, maybe they would forget about her downstairs. Then she could mosey on over to the midget racetrack around ten. But the music was blasting even louder and the laughter from downstairs reached deafening decibels.

Finally, the doorbell rang and she head a climactic scream from Sonika resound up through the floor. Moments later there was a frantic set of footfalls heading up the stairs. Sonika flung open the door. "Come on honey, this is it!"

"What do you mean, 'it'?" Gumi sure as hell wanted to know.

Sonika grabbed her hand and yanked her up off the bed, out the door, and down the stairs. "Megumi, I want you to meet Hibiki Naraune."

Gumi blinked her eyes. _Oh-oh,_ she thought. _Now it's a blind date_. She looked at the puzzled boy before her and decided she'd better say something. "Hello, Hibiki," Gumi said, aware that Sonika, Allen, her mother, and Al were all lined up as though waiting for some tremendous reaction out of her.

"Hibiki is a friend of Allen's sister, seventeen. Isn't he a doll?" Sonika insisted on knowing.

Gumi looked at the doll. Actually, he _was_ a doll. Icy blue eyes, silver hair. . . and it looked like he had a brain as well. His eyes were sweet, yet clear and focused. His hair was well-groomed, locks falling with handsome casualness. He spoke some sort of greeting to her, but she was so surprised at the kindness and warmth of his smile that she didn't hear.

"Make yourself comfortable in the TV room, and we'll bring you some drinks and _hors d'oeuvres_," Sonika insisted, whisking the two of them onto the wicker daybed. "Be right back~" she trilled, zipping out and closing the French doors behind her.

"Excuse me for a moment," Gumi said, scooting right after her. She caught Sonika by the stairs. "Do you mind telling me what's going on?"

"That's Hibiki. He's for _you_, honey,_ for you_," Sonika explained.

"He doesn't even _know_ me."

"He'll love you, honey, I know it."

"He's going to be bored stiff with me."

"Gumball, trust me, just trust me." She took Gumi by the arm, led her rapidly back to the daybed like a matron controlling a prisoner. When the French doors were closed again, it was just Gumi and Hibiki, _alone_.

"I'm glad to meet you," Hibiki said. His voice sounded sincere.

"I didn't know Allen had a sister," Gumi said nervously, "with friends like you." Her eyes now moved down his neck to his shirt, a perfect shirt, a gorgeous collar, and a crew-neck sweater that looked like he'd have gone to Baybarry's and checked every weaving to make sure not a single thread was out of place. He seemed too good to be true, as though he was born to be perfect, born to be paid great sums of money to do nothing but stroll through expensive stores and buy fine things.

"Allen told me Sonika had a nice sister. I think he was right." He said directly.

"You seem every nice to me, too." Gumi admitted. Then she let the small talk go on for a while. _Oh, my God, he's such a beauty. He's so sympatico._ She began to sense that she was in the presence of another prince. She started to feel guilty about it, as though in some way she was being disloyal to Dell. Dell needed her, this boy did not. She couldn't help wondering how much easier it might have been if she had met Hibiki first. She became excited as she began to plan what she would write in her diary that night. She'd say, Oh Diary, my sister is the most wonderful girl in the world. I think her mean, vicious sibling-rivalry period is over, and she's at last able to open up and share with me. Tonight, she brought me a most kind and loving boy. I am the ugly duckling next to him. He is all that Dell is without the depression. Hibiki is smart, going to be a lawyer. I could run a chain of gas stations. I could invent new fuels and he could do the patents on them, and sell the subsidiary rights. . .

Sonika tiptoed in with two glasses of white wine and some shrimp hors d'oeuvres, and then scooted out with a wicked little smile on her face.

Hibiki had moved closer, put his arm behind her against the back of the daybed. She felt protected, too _intimate_ to eat shrimp. He was moving so fast, so incredibly fast, she thought. _I'm being swept off my feet_, she told herself. _The chemistry must be breathtaking. Oh, my stars, thank you. This is how I dreamed life would be. I'm not forgetting Dell, I swear I'm not. My feelings are with Dell, but Hibiki is Speedy Gonzales. I know Dell and I have a destiny together, but maybe there's some way I can keep this one warming up in the bullpen just in case._ She hated herself for that thought. She would have to be more honest and risk disappointing Hibiki.

"Your eyes are cute," Hibiki noted, his lips moving closer to her face.

"You're very nice to say things like that," Gumi said, her breathing deepening, "but I've got to tell you I'm already in love with someone. I don't feel right letting you go on like this. I know that any girl in the world would think I'm crazy, but I would be playing with a stacked deck, and I'd feel, I hate to say _immoral_. But I've had fifteen years without action and suddenly I'm getting more than I can handle."

"I don't understand," Hibiki said, puzzled.

"What do you mean, you don't understand?"

"Your sister told me you didn't have any boyfriends."

"Well, I _had _nobody," Gumi said, and then she realized there was something a little strange. "Why did she tell you I had nobody? What did she do, say I was desperate? That's what she said, didn't she? She said, 'Hey Allen, I have a little charity work for some random friend of your sister's.' _Is that what she said?_ And I don't mean that to sound cruel. I don't want to sound like I'm angry or anything, but isn't that what's going on? That _is_ what's going on, isn't it?"

Hibiki looked a little sheepish — not very sheepish, just a touch. Even this embarrassment he would e able to handle with aplomb, Gumi suspected.

"I know you're a nice guy," Gumi said. "And I'm not angry or hurt. Just level with me, will you? Please?"

"You won't tell them?" he asked.

"I won't tell them."

"I believe you," Hibiki told her. Then he _did_ sound embarrassed. "They gave me a hundred dollars."

**_"One hundred dollars?!"_**

"You are angry, aren't you?"

_"One hundred United States dollars?"_ Gumi repeated. "I can't believe it."

"Yeah, but if you're upset, I'll tell them that I don't want it anymore and give it back. I'm supposed to just give you a few kisses and feels for an hour. I was supposed to light up your life. Please don't tell them I told you." She could see he was genuinely sorry.

"I won't," she finally was able to say.

"You _are_ hurt, aren't you?"

Gumi hesitated, really thought it over. "I'm _not_ hurt. Actually, I think for the first time in my life, I'm feeling a sense of love for my sister. I had no idea she'd ever pay a hundred dollars to make me happy. Break my legs, yes; make me happy, no."

Now the only thought in her head was how quickly she could make it to the Nora's Harbor Midget Raceway.

"See you, Hibiki," she said, grabbing her coat and heading straight to the door. "And don't worry about it. My fur's a fake, too — and I still like it!"


End file.
